INTERVIEW

Bernard Goldberg: 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America

CBN.com – Some believe the fabric of America's culture has taken a beating for decades now. At the heart of the attack are left-wing liberals and their ever-growing agenda.

Whether they're lurking in political arenas, infesting the halls of colleges and universities, or using their celebrity status as a platform to compare George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler, best-selling author and former CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg says the left-wing agenda is to blame for the steady decline of America's culture.

In his new book, “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37),” Goldberg lists his culprits, exposing what he calls their harmful ideologies whose imprints can be seen throughout our society.

Goldberg points to a wide range of suspects – from Howard Dean's rants and Michael Moore's smug condescension towards Middle America, to the vulgar "so-called" lyricists of rap music. Goldberg says we're experiencing a slow poison that's running through the veins of our country. And he warns as long as we continue to let anything go, eventually everything will.

PAT ROBERTSON: The best-selling author Bernie Goldberg is with right now from our D.C. bureau. Bernie, thank you for being here.

BERNARD GOLDBERG: It is my pleasure to be here, thank you for your hospitality.

ROBERTSON: You are getting to be the newsman that everyone loves to hate. Why do your former colleagues want to do, take you out and lynch you?

GOLDBERG: Take me to lunch?

ROBERTSON: No, lynch you.

GOLDBERG: You know what, don't give them any ideas, Pat.

ROBERTSON: All right, you have an intriguing title: “100 People Who are Screwing up America.” It is a very intriguing title, and it is interesting summer reading. Some of the people on the list I never heard of. Most of them I haven't heard of. They are not the rich and famous.

GOLDBERG: Some of them are people we know and detest. Others are working behind the curtain and out of the limelight, but pulling a lot of strings and doing the culture a lot of harm. I think one thing even though people will not agree with the names on the list. We ought to agree on, this country is angrier and nastier and more vulgar than it needs to be. It is a tendency to believe that it is nobody's fault. They say that societies evolve. I don't believe that. I believe it is somebody's fault and the 100 people are some of the people at fault.

ROBERTSON: You have Jerry Springer and Howard Dean, and you have Senator Bob Byrd (D-WV) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA), how do they all fit together?

GOLDBERG: That is a good question. The book covers a whole variety of things. It is not just the TV schlep-meisters to people on television and put things on in what used to be the family hour, and you want to watch a situation comedy and it is one cheap sex joke after another that embarrasses you that you are sitting there. It's those people- it is the Hollywood blowhards who think that Bush is a Nazi is civil discussion, and people on college campus that impose speech codes. Things you can say and can't say because no one wants to offend students or those in these protected groups. What is liberal about that? It's about lawyers who file insane lawsuits that make you want to laugh until you cry. There was a lawsuit a prisoner in Florida who was there for murdering five people, lightning hit the satellite dish in the prison and they could only get network television. So, he sues the state of Florida because he said network television is too violent.

ROBERTSON: I can't believe it.

GOLDBERG: It's true. So it takes in the whole variety of the culture. I think that as we have become more on tolerant of all of the right things. We became more tolerant of civil rights and women's rights, we became indiscriminately tolerant. We became tolerant of garbage in our culture.

ROBERTSON: What is the difference between historic liberals and the angry group out there?

GOLDBERG: I described myself, in my first book “Bias” as one of those old-fashioned liberals. I'm the liberal the way John F. Kennedy used to be a liberal but not like Michael Moore. Those guys in the old days were upbeat and optimistic. They were hopeful about the country and really the optimist. And today when you look around the cultural - and I am not talking about regular liberals, they're good folks, they work hard, they care about their families - but the cultural elitist and the people who speak for liberalism in this country. I mean, it is a dark, dark America as far as they are concerned. It's blame America first…if we make a mistake. Not because we made an honest mistake, it is because our motives are wrong. I think that is why they are losing the presidential elections. Most Americans are saying that is not the America I see.

ROBERTSON: Why don't you think the Democrats get it and move away from those extremists? How can anyone embrace a Michael Moore and think he would win a presidential election?

GOLDBERG: Explain this to me. In this very town that I'm sitting in right now, Washington D.C... when Michael Moore's movie came out, he showed it to the Democratic Congressional caucus. All these big-shot Democrats go to the theater here in Washington, and they give him a standing ovation. Michael Moore is on the list not because of being a fringe crank character. He has become mainstream. That's one of the points of the book. Guys not too many years ago would have been considered leftist are now mainstream liberals. That's the problem. And if the Democrats don't wise up to this, I think they are going to have problems for years to come.

ROBERTSON: That group, have they hijacked the Democrat Party?

GOLDBERG: I think they have. That is the exact word I would use. They have hijacked the Democratic party. It is a matter if the other Democrats, the millions of other Democrats out there, want Michael Moore and Al Franken and even Howard Dean and Teddy Kennedy speaking for them.

ROBERTSON: Bernie, thank you for being with us. Ladies and gentlemen, an intriguing book for summer: “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is number 37).” Bernard Goldberg's book, sure to move up the best-seller list.

GOLDBERG: Thank you, Pat, it is a pleasure to talk to you. I appreciate that.

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